Monti Rushes to the Exit as Bersani Seeks ‘Insane’ Person’s Job.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti can’t wait to quit his job. Pier
Luigi Bersani, who has first shot at replacing Monti, said only a
lunatic would want to. “Believe me, only an insane person would want to
govern at
this moment,” Bersani saidyesterday in a meeting with rival
lawmakers as he sought to persuade them to support his bid to
form a government. The contradiction is characteristic of Italian
politics at
a time when the economy is stuck in recession. Parliament was
deadlocked by inconclusive elections last month, and Bersani,
after nearly a week of talks, has given no signal that he can
break the impasse. He will report to President Giorgio Napolitano today
with the results of his negotiations. The incumbent has indicated his
desire for a breakthrough. “This government, and I’ll say it in the most respectful
way possible, can’t wait to have its mandate rescinded,” Monti
said yesterday in a speech to parliament. Italian 10-year bond yields jumped 21 basis points to 4.78
percent yesterday, widening the difference in yield with
similar-maturity German bunds 28 basis points to 3.5 percentage
points, the biggest gap since Dec. 10.

Slovenian Austerity After Cyprus Fails to Stem Yield Gain. Slovenia’s pledge to continue
austerity measures failed to stem a rise in bond yields to
record highs as investors worry the Alpine nation will follow
Cyprus as the next euro-region member requiring a bailout. Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek, in her first major policy
speech since taking office, told Parliament yesterday that her
week-old government would rebuild ailing banks and improve state
finances that are in “bad shape” so the country won’t become
the sixth euro member to need aid.

Cyprus Fig Leaf Masks
Hollande Economic Growth Woes: Euro Credit. French President Francois
Hollande is basking in borrowing costs are near record lows, helped most
recently by investors seeking shelter from problems in Cyprus. The
yield on France's benchmark 10-year bond fell 6 basis points to 2.0%
during the 10 days as European authorities roiled markets by imposing a
tax on depositors in Cypriot banks. The French rate is just short of the
all-time low of 1.92% reached in December. "I don't see any value in
French bonds" at current levels, said Robin Marshall, director of
fixed-income at Smith & Williamson Investment Management in London.
"The reforms in France have stalled and the economy is contracting. The
problem is the peripheral space helped to divert attention of the market
from these problems.

EU to Start Debate on Energy, Climate Rules Amid Crisis. The European Union’s executive
started a debate today on EU climate and energy rules as the
crisis-ridden bloc seeks a long-term plan to cut greenhouse
gases and promote clean power technologies. While the 27-nation bloc is making “good progress” toward
its 2020 goals to boost the share of renewable energy and cut
greenhouse gases, a framework for the subsequent decade is
needed to give investors legal certainty, spur innovation and
prepare for a global climate deal, the European Commission said
in a consultation paper published in Brussels. The commission invited member states, the European
Parliament, industry groups and non-governmental organizations
to submit until July 2 their views on EU objectives for 2030.

China Stocks Fall Most in Three Weeks as Financial Shares Slump. China
stocks fell, dragging the CSI 300 Index (SHSZ300) down the most in
three weeks, as banks tumbled on concern new wealth-management product
rules will hurt earnings
and as the government signaled more flexible interest rates. Industrial
Bank Co. lost 9.2 percent, while China Minsheng Banking Corp. declined
7.6 percent, leading a gauge of financial companies to an 11-week low.
A directive from the banking regulator for lenders to limit the
investment of client funds in debt that isn’t publicly traded will hurt
revenue for some banks by 2 percent, according to a Citic Securities Co.
report today. “The regulation will hurt banks’ profits,” Zhou Lin, an
analyst at Huatai Securities Co., said by phone from Nanjing. That will
drag on stocks because “banks have a big weighting” on benchmark
indexes, he said. The Shanghai Composite Index (SHCOMP) sank 2.4
percent to 2,245.57 at 10:27 a.m. local time. The CSI 300 Index, which
tracks stocks in Shanghai and Shenzhen, tumbled 2.9 percent, the most
since March 4, to 2,508.96. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng China Enterprises
Index dropped 1.7 percent. The CSI 300 Financials Index slumped 4.7
percent, the most since March 4 and the biggest drop among the CSI 300’s 10 industry groups. The rule to cap investment by Chinese banks’ wealth management products in non-exchange traded products will
reduce growth of total social financing, leading to pessimistic
expectations about economic recovery, analysts led by Mao
Changqing at Citic Securities wrote in a report today.

Rebar Falls in Shanghai on Concerns Over China’s Property Market. Steel reinforcement-bar futures
declined with China’s stocks on concerns that further tightening measures in the property sector may damp demand. Futures for delivery in October dropped as much as 1.2 percent to 3,841 yuan ($618) a metric ton on the Shanghai
Futures Exchange, before trading at 3,847 yuan at 11:08 a.m.
Shanghai time. The most-active contract has lost 11 percent
after climbing to a 10-month high of 4,297 yuan on Feb. 8.

Kia Says Weakening Yen Becoming ‘Weapon’ for Japanese Carmakers. The weakening yen is becoming a
“weapon” for Japanese automakers by making them more
competitive, said a senior executive at South Korea’s second- largest carmaker.
“The weakening yen reinforces the Japanese competitors,” Kia Motors
Corp. (000270) Vice President Lee Soon Nam told reporters today at the
Seoul Motor Show. “The weakening yen will become
the Japanese automaker’s weapon, they now have reinforcements.” The Japanese currency has weakened 17 percent against the
South Korean won in the past six months, making the country’s
exports cheaper versus its Asian neighbor.

Japan
Sees Population Shrinking 16% by 2040, More Elderly. Japanese
population may drop 16% from 2010 level to 107.3m in 2040, according to
estimates released by National Institute of Population and Social
Security Research yesterday. People who are 65 years old and above will
likely account for 36% of total population in 2040, compared with 23% in
2010 and 30% in 2025.

Rubber Drops as Debt Crisis, Weak U.S. Data Raise Demand Concern. Rubber declined the most in a week
on concern that demand for the commodity will weaken as Europe’s debt crisis is deepening and pending U.S. home sales fell. The
contract for delivery in September fell as much as 2.2 percent, the
most since March 22, to 276.4 yen a kilogram ($2,936 a metric ton) on
the Tokyo Commodity Exchange and was at
276.7 yen at 10:49 a.m. Futures have lost 8.5 percent this year.

Lead
Prices Drop to Four-Month Low on European Debt Concerns. Lead prices
fell to a four-month low in London as a bailout for Cyprus and political
deadlock in Italy stoked concern that the euro-area debt crisis will
curb metal demand. Tin and copper also dropped. The Cyprus rescue
"tarnished" the region's appeal, Swiss bank Pictet & Cie. said,
while the euro fell to a four-month low against the dollar. An index of
six industrial metals headed for the first two-month slide in more than a
year. "The Cyprus situation is dragging everything lower, and the
markets look pretty bleak," Grant Barratt, a trader at Jefferies Bache
LLc in New York, said in an interview. "The euro isn't helping things."

Red Hat(RHT) Falls as Fourth-Quarter Sales Miss Estimates. Red
Hat Inc. (RHT), the largest seller of Linux operating-system software,
reported fiscal fourth-quarter sales that missed estimates as some
customers -- concerned about sluggish economic growth -- put off
purchases. Profit excluding some items was 36 cents a share on sales
of $347.9 million, the Raleigh, North Carolina-based company said today
in a statement. That compares with analysts’ average prediction of
earnings of 30 cents on revenue of $349.3 million, according to data
compiled by Bloomberg. Sales and profit forecasts for the current period
also missed projections. Tax increases in the U.S. and a worsening recession in Europe are causing businesses to delay upgrading to Red Hat’s Linux software from older Unix systems, according to Richard Williams, an analyst at Cross Research. “The channel checks showed that activity just stopped after the first week of December,”
said Williams, who has a hold rating on the stock, with $51 price
target. The shares decreased as much as 14 percent in extended
trading.

PVH(PVH) says Warnaco deal will cut profit in 2013. PVH Corp. says its Warnaco acquisition will require more
investments than it initially anticipated and weigh on its earnings for
the year. The clothing company also declared that 2013 will be a
transitional year as it invests in its brands, and its shares sank in
after-hours trading Wednesday.

Wall Street Journal:

Use of Food Stamps Swells Even as Economy Improves. The financial crisis is over and the recession ended in 2009. But one
of the federal government's biggest social welfare programs, which
expanded when the economy convulsed, isn't shrinking back alongside the
recovery.
Enrollment in the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program, as the modern-day food-stamp benefit is
known, has soared 70% since 2008 to a record 47.8 million as of December
2012. The biggest factor behind the upward march of food stamps is a
sluggish job market and a rising poverty rate. At the same time, many
states have pushed to get more people to apply for SNAP, a program where
the federal government picks up the tab.
But there is another driver, which has
its origins in President Bill Clinton's 1996 welfare overhaul. In recent
years, the law has enabled states to ease asset and income tests for
would-be participants, with the encouragement of the Obama administration, allowing into the program people with relatively higher
incomes as well as savings. By expanding the pool of potential applicants, they are
redrawing the landscape of government assistance. It is one reason why
SNAP appears to have evolved from a program that rose and fell with the
unemployment rate to a more permanent feature of the landscape.

China Tightens Regulations on Wealth Management. China moved to rein in wildly popular but opaque investment products that form a
key plank of the nation's shadow-banking system, after the high-profile failure
of one product offered a glimpse of the risk they pose to the financial
system. The rules issued Wednesday by China's banking regulator came as China's four
biggest state-run banks said they had more than 3 trillion yuan ($467 billion)
worth of such products outstanding at the end of last year, their fullest
disclosure yet of their exposure to the products and a move signaling their own
caution toward their proliferation.

Bank Havens Seek Distance From Crisis. The risks posed by hosting a large financial industry became a flash point on
Wednesday as the Cyprus bailout trained the spotlight on other small euro
nations that depend on the sector for jobs and economic growth. The issue has become a sore spot mainly for Luxembourg and Malta after the
debate over Cyprus prompted European ministers and politicians to question the
viability of housing a large financial center in a small country. Cyprus's
bailout requires the country to shrink its large financial-services industry to
the euro-zone average, setting an unwelcome precedent for nations whose economic
models are based on financial services.

Funds Reshape Investment Mold. Hedge funds that specialize in bonds are bulking up on stocks, in the
latest sign of investor concern over the health of the long bull market
in debt prices. Fund managers that have made winning bets in corporate loans,
mortgage bonds and distressed debt are altering course after a flood of
cash has pushed up the prices of all sorts of debt investments, raising
risks and depressing expected returns.

Facebook's(FB) Mark Zuckerberg Starting Political Group. The
28-year-old Facebook Inc. chief executive is in the process of
co-organizing a political advocacy group made up of top technology
leaders that would push federal
legislative reform on issues ranging from immigration to education, said
people familiar with the development.

Laffer and Moore: The Red-State Path to Prosperity. Blue
states with high taxes are struggling to compete for businesses and
workers. You can tell a lot about prosperity in America by observing the
places people are moving to and where they are packing up and moving
from. New Census Bureau data on metropolitan areas indicate that the
South and the Sunbelt regions continue to grow, while the Northeast and
Midwest continue to shrink.
Among the 10 fastest-growing metro
areas last year were Raleigh, Austin, Las Vegas, Orlando, Charlotte,
Phoenix, Houston, San Antonio and Dallas. All of these are in low-tax,
business-friendly red states. Blue-state areas such as Cleveland,
Detroit, Buffalo, Providence and Rochester were among the biggest
population losers.

Fox News:

What to Cut: Red tape stalls firing of ineffective federal workers. Working for the federal government used to mean a trade-off -- lower
salaries, in exchange for higher job security. Today, that trade-off is
gone as federal workers often make good money with little risk of being
fired. Though numbers are hard to come by in the mammoth 2.4
million-employee federal workforce, an analysis by USA Today found the
federal government fired only one half of one percent of its workers in
fiscal year 2011. That's about five times smaller than in the private
sector.

Surging Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing the System. Student-loan defaults surged in the first three months of 2013, while
efforts to collect bad loans are faltering, according to credit analysts
and government audits. It is the latest twist in a college debt crisis
that is hanging over recent graduates and dragging on the broader
economy.

G4S Readies Guards as Cypriot Banks Prepare to Open. Cyprus reopens its banks on Thursday while limiting withdrawals, banning
cheques and curbing the use of Cypriot credit cards abroad, among
measures imposed to avert a bank run after it agreed a tough rescue deal
with international lenders.

Fisker puts U.S. workforce on furlough this week. Fisker Automotive, which has
not made a vehicle since July, placed its U.S. workforce on
furlough this week as part of its effort to keep costs low while
it continues to search for a strategic partner, the U.S.
automaker said on Wednesday.

Oil industry to sidestep brunt of new U.S. swaps rules. Oil companies are largely
escaping the close scrutiny of derivatives trading they once
warned would harm their business and are seeking further delays
from U.S. regulators. Beginning in January this year, the top U.S. derivatives
regulator has required that companies register as dealers if
they trade more than $8 billion in swaps a year, unless they do
so to hedge price swings in their day-to-day business. But no large energy companies have yet joined the ranks of
the 70 or so investment banks that have registered as swap
dealers and are subject to the toughest level of oversight, two
people briefed on the matter said.

JPMorgan(JPM) risk disclosures fell short for regulators -documents. For months after JPMorgan
Chase & Co executives first admitted that they had
wrongly brushed off questions about the "London Whale"
derivatives losses, officials at the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission pressed the company to disclose more to
investors about risks it was taking.

Telegraph:

Cyprus has finally killed myth that EMU is benign.
The punishment regime imposed on Cyprus is a trick against everybody
involved
in this squalid saga, against the Cypriot people and the German
people,
against savers and creditors. All are being deceived. The Cyprus
debacle has taught us yet again that EMU has gone off the rails, is
a danger to stability, and should be dismantled before it destroys
Europe’s
post-War order. Whether it marks a watershed moment in the crisis is
another matter. Italy,
Spain, France and Portugal have their own crises, moving to their own
rhythm. The denouement will arrive when the democracies of southern Europe conclude
that recovery is a false promise and that the only way to end mass
unemployment is to break free of EMU’s contractionary regime. It will be decided by Italy, not Cyprus.

Fasten your seat belts – a balance of payments crisis looms. Whatever happened to the holy grail of a more balanced UK economy?
Britain has been living substantially beyond its means for more than
thirty years now. Spending more than we earn long pre-dated the Labour
years. And it's getting worse, not better.

Maeil Business Newspaper:

The South Korean government will cut its 2013 GDP forecast to mid-2% from 3% today, citing unnamed government officials.

People's Daily:

Apple's(AAPL) after-sale service policy may violate Chinese law,
citing the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and
Quarantine. The report cites customer complaints about being charged
for keypad repairs. Apple must provide free maintenance service within
certain period, AQSIQ is cited as saying. Apple should provide free
spare phones to customers if products can't be repaired in 7 days,
citing AQSIQ. The government will "seriously deal with" Apple if it
doesn't rectify problems "if proven true," the report says.

Shanghai Securities News:

Yao Jingyuan, researcher at the Counselors' Office of the State
Council, said China faces relatively large downward economic pressure in
the middle of this year. Yao is also former chief economist at the
National Bureau of Statistics. Yao cites growth rate for newly started
projects in first two months being nearly 20 percentage points slower
than a year earlier.

China Securities Journal:

Cities in the central and western Chinese provinces may issue
detailed property curb policies in early- or mid-April, citing people
familiar with the situation. Tier-2 and tier-3 Chinese cities may impose
different property market controls than the nation's major cities, the
report said.

21st Century Business Herald:

China's southern city of Shenzhen will likely raise in April the down payment for secondhome purchases to 70%, from 60% currently, citing people familiar with the situation.

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly lower, weighed down by financial and industrial shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open modestly lower and maintain losses into the afternoon. The Portfolio is 50% net long heading into the day.

Italian Bonds Slide on Bersani Comments, Lower Demand at Auction. Italian bonds slumped, with five-
year yields rising the most in a month, as Democratic Party
leader Pier Luigi Bersani said there was no chance of a broad coalition to end the deadlock caused by elections last month.
Italy’s 10-year yields extended their first quarterly increase since
June as demand fell when the Treasury sold 6.91 billion euros ($8.84
billion) of debt at an auction today.
Spanish and Greek bonds also slid as investors shunned the
securities of so-called peripheral nations. German bunds gained,
with 10-year yields falling to a three-month low, even as
European governments vowed the tax on bank accounts to finance
Cyprus’s aid package won’t be a precedent for future rescues. Italy’s five-year yield jumped 18 basis points, or 0.18 percentage point, to 3.52 percent at 3:26 p.m. London time after
rising as much as 22 basis points, the biggest increase since
Feb. 26.

Spain Says 2012 Deficit Is Bigger Than First Estimated: Economy.
The Spanish government said its 2012 budget deficit will be bigger than
first estimated after the European Union requested changes in how tax
claims are computed. The budget shortfall excluding aid to the
banking sector was 6.98 percent of gross domestic product last year,
more than the 6.74 percent predicted on Feb. 28, Deputy Budget Minister Marta Fernandez Curras told reporters in Madrid today. That compares with 8.96 percent in 2011.

France’s Towns Demand Rescue From ‘Time Bomb’ of Dexia Loans.
French towns from Asnieres to Sainte-Etienne are calling on President
Francois Hollande’s government to save them from about 10 billion euros
($13 billion) in Dexia loans whose risks they say weren’t made clear.
Sitting on debt pegged to foreign interest rates or currencies, many
troubled municipalities are struggling to service their loans and
clamoring for help from the state. “This is a time bomb for a certain
number of local governments,” Sebastien Pietrasanta, the mayor of
Asnieres, a Paris suburb, told reporters yesterday.

European Stocks Drop as Italian Yilds Surge; TDC Retreats. European
stocks fell to a three- week low, led by a selloff in banks, as the
leader of Italy’s Democratic Party ruled out the possibility that rival
politicians will agree on a broad coalition government. Banca Monte
dei Paschi di Siena SpA and Banco Popolare SC slid more than 1 percent
as Italian bond yields surged. TDC (TDC) A/S dropped 1.6 percent as its
private-equity owner sold another 6.8 percent stake in the Danish phone
company. Safran (SAF) SA slipped 1.5
percent as the French government sold 13 million shares in the
maker of aircraft engines.

Euro Weakens Below $1.28 on Deadlocked Italy, Cyprus Concern. The euro fell to less than $1.28
for the first time in more than four months as a bailout for
Cyprus and a political deadlock in Italy undermined demand for the region’s assets.
Europe’s shared currency weakened against all 16 of its major peers as
demand fell at a sale of Italy’s bonds and the nation’s political
parties remained at an impasse after last
month’s elections.

VIX Contracts Reach Six-Year High Versus
S&P 500 Bets: Options. While U.S. stock volatility is stuck
close to a six-year low, options used to wager on its resurgence are
jumping. The VVIX Index, tracking contracts whose value is tied to
swings in the CBOE Volatility Index, has gained 21% since reaching the
lowest level of the year on Feb. 19. Over that period, the VIX climbed
3.7%, pushing the ratio between them to the widest in six years on March
15, according to Bloomberg. Divergence between the gauges shows
increasing speculation that the VIX is poised for a rebound after losing
45% since the end of 2011. Traders that are buying options on
volatility rather than stocks are betting that when losses hit the
S&P's 500 Index, they will be rapid, according to Philippe
Trouve, a director for equity derivatives at Bank of America in NY.

Cliffs(CLF) Declines After Morgan Stanley Downgrade. Cliffs Natural Resources
Inc. (CLF), the largest U.S. iron-ore miner, tumbled the most in six
weeks after analysts at Morgan Stanley said new supply in North America
may reduce the commodity’s price. Cliffs fell 12 percent to $18.94
at 9:41 a.m. in New York, after earlier dropping 15 percent, the most
intraday since Feb. 13. The shares (CLF) have declined 51 percent this
year, making it the
year’s worst performer on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

N. Korea Cuts Hotline to South After Attack Threats. North
Korea cut off a military hotline with South Korea a day after putting
its artillery forces on high alert and threatening to attack the U.S.,
in the
latest escalation of tensions on the peninsula. “Under the situation where a war may break out any moment,
there is no need to keep north-south military communications,”
the official Korean Central News Agency said, adding that South
Korea was informed at 11:20 a.m. today. The regime cut off a
separate Red Cross hotline on March 8.

Apple(AAPL) Ire Spreads to China’s SOEs. Want to know who are China’s most hated companies? All you have to do is hit out at one of its most beloved. For the third consecutive day, the Chinese Communist Party’s official
mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, has run articles criticizing Apple for
its warranty policy in China and calling Apple’s defense of its
customer-service practices arrogant. Apple has declined to comment on
the coverage.
It’s still difficult to know whether the unkind official media
attention will dull or polish Apple’s shine if it has an effect at all.

CNBC:

JPMorgan(JPM) Faces Full-Court Press of Federal Investigations. As the nation's strongest bank, JPMorgan Chase used to be known for carrying special sway with regulators. Now it increasingly finds itself in the cross hairs of federal authorities. At least two board members are worried about the mounting problems,
and some top executives fear that the bank's relationships in Washington
have frayed as JPMorgan becomes a focus of federal investigations.

Deep Freeze: Home Sales to Barely Budge in Spring. The U.S. housing market will see no surge at the start of spring, as
fewer buyers signed contracts to purchase existing homes in February.
An industry index of so-called pending home sales fell 0.4 percent from
January.

Why Derivatives May Be the Biggest Risk for the Global Economy. The very fact that reliable figures are hard to come by is itself part of the
problem. The $638 trillion currently reported by the BIS is only a floor.
Estimates for the total capital employed in derivatives trading is somewhere
between $10 and $20 trillion, roughly comparable to the capitalization of the
NYSE. That means that each actual dollar in the derivatives market is supporting
between $35 and $70 of nominal value. Losses of only a few percent of face value
therefore would be enough to wipe out even the best-capitalized derivatives
traders.

Reuters:

Cyprus bailout not expected to be euro zone's last -Reuters poll.
Cyprus probably won't be the
last euro zone country to ask for an international bailout, according to
a Reuters poll of economists, who cited Spain and Slovenia as the
likeliest candidates. The survey also showed no agreement over whether
the latest bailout, which hinges on shutting one of Cyprus's biggest
banks at a cost to richer depositors, would be better or worse for the
financial stability of the euro zone. There were 16 responses naming Spain, and 16 for Slovenia,
whose outsized banking industry has drawn comparisons with
Cyprus, making it the latest country to fall under the spotlight
of the euro zone's debt crisis. "The Cyprus deal has brought the European banking crisis to
a new level," said Lena Komileva, director of G+ Economics, a
research consultancy in London.

China Holds Landing Exercises in Disputed Seas. China's increasingly powerful navy paid a symbolic visit to the
country's southernmost territorial claim deep in the South China Sea
this week as part of military drills in the disputed Spratly Islands
involving amphibious landings and aircraft. The visit to James Shoal, reported by state media, followed several days
of drills starting Saturday and marked a high-profile show of China's
determination to stake its claim to territory disputed by Vietnam, the
Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei amid rising tensions in the
region.

Telegraph:

Cypriot 'solution' threatens further economic carnage among the other PIGS. There is no mess quite so bad that eurocrat intervention won't make even worse. Ever since the Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem declared
that Cyprus would act as a template for other struggling eurozone
lenders, the sound of screeching brakes and gear sticks being wrenched
rapidly into reverse has been deafening. This is what he told Reuters:

Cyprus bail-out: live. Cypriots face a suspension of credit card payments for overseas goods and a
ban on cashing cheques under draft capital controls designed to avert a run
on the banks.

UK economy contracts by 0.3pc - reaction. Britain's economy contracted by 0.3pc in the fourth quarter of 2012, official
data confirmed on Wednesday, as industrial production posted its biggest
quarterly fall in almost four years. Here experts give their view.

Die Welt:

One Third of Germans Want Deutsche Mark Back. One in three
Germans has lost faith in the euro, citing a Forsa poll commissioned by
Royal Bank of Scotland's German unit. Only the strongest countries in
the euro area should keep the common currency, 43% of respondents said.
50% of those asked said they're concerned they may lose money in a
banking crisis.

Ruhr Nachrichten:

German Chamber of Commerce Warns of High Labor Costs. A further
increase in labor costs in Germany would be hardly bearable, citing
Martin Wansleben head of the German Chamber of Commerce. Says more than
every third company sees a business risk for the coming months.

The positions and strategies discussed on BETWEEN THE HEDGES are offered for entertainment purposes only and are in no way intended to serve as personal investing advice. Readers should not make any investment decision without first conducting their own thorough due diligence. Readers should assume the editor of this blog holds a position in any securities discussed, recommended or panned. While the information provided is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, its accuracy or completeness cannot be guaranteed, nor can this publication be, in anyway, considered liable for the investment performance of any securities or strategies discussed.